Upon the whole, however, what strikes the thoughtful observer is not the diversity of policy and management among these institutions, even where they have avowedly different aims, but their conformity to a common type, and that the prison type. With only two exceptions—Sleighton Farms and the Training School at Morganza—the persistent shadow of the Penitentiary rests upon them all. It is true that in the new Central Penitentiary on its broad acreage at Bellefonte and in the Eastern Penitentiary, so far as the physical and industrial conditions render possible, the shadow has been lifted, but it is safe to say of the penal system of the State as a whole, that it is still too much dominated by the ancient ideal of demonstrating to the inmates that “the way of the transgressor is hard.” Even in institutions of a purely reformatory character, while they leave little to be desired in the way of healthful conditions of living, orderly administration and educational opportunities, the reformation of the wrong-doer is still too much sought through a system of stern repression, of “iron discipline”—a system which, as all experience shows, defeats its end by crushing out the finer elements of character on which the redemption of the individual must depend. An almost invariable incident of this type of disciplinary control is the persistence of the policy of securing good conduct through punishment—often severe punishment for trivial offenses—rather than by the more enlightened and humane method of holding out incentives to good behavior, either by the grant of special privileges or by putting on the inmates themselves the responsibility for the good behavior of all.
Other instances of the persistence of the traditional attitude toward the offender are the almost complete lack throughout our penal system of a scientific, balanced ration, such as has in the experience of prison administrators in other States, as notably at Sing Sing Prison in 1916, and more recently in our army camps, demonstrated the value both for health and efficiency and from the point of view of economy of a scientific management of the problem of food supply for large masses of men; the general indifference to outdoor recreation and exercise, so essential to the health and morale of the inmate body; the meagre provision for any education worthy of the name; the all but complete lack of comprehensive and well rounded systems of vocational or industrial training, on which the efficiency of prison labor and the ability of the inmates to “make good” in the world of industry after their release so largely depends; the demoralizing idleness which is still after three decades of effort the most marked characteristic of our prison system; and, finally, the insufficient care for the physical and mental health of the inmates of our correctional institutions, which still for the most part mingle indiscriminately together the tuberculous and syphilitic with those who are sound in body and the insane, psychopathic and defective with those who are sound in mind.
Many of these conditions which continue to put the brand of the prison on the inmates of our correctional institutions are doubtless due to the survival of the Bastille type of prison architecture, which is exemplified in the Eastern and Western Penitentiaries and in such structures as Moyamensing Prison in Philadelphia, the Convict Prison at Holmesburg, the Philadelphia House of Correction and many others. It is scarcely too much to say that no human being is vile enough to deserve confinement in such a place or dangerous enough to need it. Even the most unbending of the old type of prison official will concede that 80 per cent. of the inmates neither need nor deserve to be confined behind triple bars of steel or in cells like catacombs or within walls like those of Egyptian tombs. Keepers and inmates alike lose half their humanity by confinement in these grim and forbidding structures. No reforming influence however humane and generous, can long survive in their atmosphere.
Public opinion is at last moving away from this antiquated type of prison architecture to the newer type represented in the honor prison at New Hampton Farms in New York and in our Commonwealth in the cottage colonies at Sleighton Farms, Glen Mills, Morganza, and Muncy. The change which comes over the men who are transferred from the Western Penitentiary to the new prison site in Centre County is a sufficient commentary on the older type of prison, and demonstrates beyond peradventure the duty of affording to all of our convict population a similar life of freedom and opportunity. This result, so desirable from every point of view, could in large measure be attained in a short time by equipping the Eastern Penitentiary with a suitable area of farm land in the Eastern Section of the State and by making immediate provision for the institution of State industrial farms for the convicts confined in the county prisons, as is recommended elsewhere in this report.
IV.
Prison Labor.
The conditions existing in the penal institutions of the Commonwealth with respect to the employment of the inmates in useful industry have been so fully set forth in the Emergency Report submitted by the Commission to the Governor in September last (a copy of which is annexed to this report) and in the comprehensive study of the problem by the Penal Commission of 1913-1915 (submitted to the General Assembly under date of February 15, 1915) that it is not deemed necessary to go into the matter at length in this place. It suffices to call attention to the fact that the conditions described in those reports have not in any material respect been improved. Of approximately 10,000 inmates in the penal and correctional institutions of the State, less than one-half are usefully employed, not more than one-fourth in productive labor. The economic waste of such a system extended over a century is scarcely less appalling than its inhumanity. By the law a large part of this interminable procession of offending and suffering humanity has been condemned to hard labor. In actual practice nearly all of it has been doomed to wasteful and demoralizing idleness.
The law of June 1, 1915, “providing a system of employment and compensation for the inmates of the Eastern Penitentiary, Western Penitentiary and the Pennsylvania Industrial Reformatory at Huntingdon” and creating a Prison Labor Commission to carry its provisions into effect, has proved almost wholly inoperative, owing primarily to the failure of the Legislature to provide for the compulsory purchase of prison-made goods by the Commonwealth or the political divisions thereof or by public institutions. As a consequence, out of a total population of 3200 in the three institutions to which the authority of the Commission extends, at the close of the year 1918 only 169 were employed under the direction of the Commission. These were distributed as follows:—
| Eastern Penitentiary, population | 1,371 | |
| Caning chairs | 16 | |
| Cigarmaking | 11 | |
| Shoemaking | 42 | |
| Knitting hosiery | 38 | |
| —— | 107 | |
| Absolutely idle | 839 | |
| Western Penitentiary, population | 720 | |
| Broommaking | 10 | |
| Brushmaking | 2 | |
| Weaving | 18 | |
| —— | 30 | |
| Absolutely idle | 393 | |
| Huntingdon Reformatory, population | 579 | |
| Auto-tagmaking | 32 |
Whether considered as a relief from the crushing burden of expense that our penal establishments entail, or as a remedy for the physical and moral degeneration resulting from enforced idleness, or as a means to equip the inmates for lives of industry and usefulness after their release, a system of prison labor which produces the results set forth in these figures stands self condemned.
To make the plan embodied in the law of 1915 effective, it should further provide: